On September 8, 2016 ISEPR Foundation and Rethinking Russia held the International Conference “State Duma 2016”. The event was devoted to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Russia, which will take place on September 18.

The participants of the conference “State Duma 2016”, organized by the Institute of socio-economic and political researches and International Analytical Center “Rethinking Russia”, consider that the new State Duma will be more active and affluent.

Both parliamentary and non-parliamentary notable Russian parties have held their party conventions. The programs have been declared and candidates both by party lists and in single-mandate constituencies have been nominated, the submission of the documents to the Central Electoral Commission for registration has started. All political forces have tried to set their goals – the majority of them will seek to get into the State Duma. Leading Russian experts discuss who is unlikely to achieve their ambitions, who may give a surprise and what all the discussions will revolve around.

As the big electoral cycle had already begun, ISEPR Foundation experts analyzed the launching sites of the parliamentary opposition this year and compared them with their electoral ratings at the start of 2011 campaign. Besides, ISEPR Foundation experts compared the key federal bodies’ ratings before the elections of 2011 and 2016, including assessment of Vladimir Putin and United Russia’s credibility.

France and Russia both have an experience of holding primaries ahead of nation-wide elections. A democratic innovation of choosing candidate that was adopted in Russia is something Western opinion is not prepared to admit. But it gives a good example to countries like France whose party system is oligarchic and struggles to undergo reforms.

This year United Russia was not the only party that decided to hold primaries ahead of the September Duma elections. The Democratic Coalition, a collaboration between several opposition groups, organized its own primary election that ended in failure and led to the collapse of the coalition. As a result of numerous scandals the opposition has split into two camps: supporters of Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Kasyanov.

A special session of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights was held in Moscow. The participants dwelt on the electoral reform and, in particular, on the measures to make monitoring more transparent.

United Russia’s primaries that took place on Sunday have clearly illustrated voters’ longing for new political figures, claim experts. Partly it contributed to a high turnout as nearly 10 million voters came to cast their ballots Russia-wide but only preliminary results have been released. We asked leading experts what the primaries mean for the United Russia party and for the upcoming Duma elections.

The alien word “primaries” has already taken root in Russian political discourse. Nowadays primary elections defined as a means by which a political party nominates candidates for upcoming general elections or by-elections refer both to the situation in the United States and in Russia. Primaries may help to address the pressing problem of clearing the way for fresh blood to join the ruling party and Russia’s political establishment as a whole.

Russia goes to the polls on 18 September 2016. Not only will the seventh convocation of the State Duma be chosen, but 38 regional legislatures and eight regional governors will also be selected, and there will also be municipal elections. The 2011-12 electoral cycle provoked a tumultuous period of contentious politics, but it is unlikely that the forthcoming elections will be accompanied by anything like as much controversy.